


When in this world I betray you, let us be faithful in another

by witheredsong



Category: Social Network (2010) RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-12
Updated: 2015-09-12
Packaged: 2018-04-20 10:45:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4784483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/witheredsong/pseuds/witheredsong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the problem with actors. Reality sometimes gets blurred.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When in this world I betray you, let us be faithful in another

When Andrew thinks back on the time he spent in Eduardo Saverin’s skin, he feels a small pang of alarm. Like a soldier who has barely returned alive from war, and every small thing can trigger a flashback that drags him back into the helpless fury of heat and blood and pain, he holds himself closely, inwardly turned. The thing is, acting is psychologically demanding on a visceral level, and if one is not careful, sometimes all that remains is the character. And this scares him badly.

 

He wakes up in their London flat, it’s gray and raining outside. The air smells of petrol fumes, and the coffee Shannon is making in the kitchenette. He lies back, lazy, cocooned in the blanket and lets his mind wander. Shannon wanders back into the bedroom, hair loose and rumpled, coffee mug in hand, and he loves her so much that he can’t breathe for a second.

 

“Good morning lazybones!”, she trills in his ear and then bites him, no tentativeness, just a healthy chomp that makes him jump in surprise. “I want to go to Bond Street today,” she announces, and he groans. “Can’t we just stay in bed all day? Please!”, he whines, throwing in the Bambi eyes for effect. She just laughs and hauls off his duvet. Of course the eyes don’t work. She’s known him for far too long. “No. It’s been two days and we’ve spent them all in bed, Drew,” she leers at him comically, and he feels a blush rising in his face. When they meet after he’s been away for long, his need for her is often insatiable. She says she finds it adorable, but he knows she’s just as desperate for him. They have always been equals in their passions, that is what anchors them so closely together. Its security and comfort and peace. He’s been silent for too long, lost in his own head, and she is peering down at him quizzically. “Earth to Andrew,” she laughs, waving her hand ridiculously close to his nose, so he swats her away. “I swear, “, she is still smiling, “Since you’ve come back from the filming of that film, you are so prone to zoning off, I wonder if you’ve turned into a zombie!” When she’d heard he was co-starring with Jesse, she’d rented all his films, and had watched them religiously, but Zombieland was her favourite, obviously. “If you think you’re witty, well, you’re not, “, he says mutinously, hiding a grin with the coffee mug. “Why do we have to go to Bond Street, again?”, when he’s feeling slightly more awake. She’s curled up at his side, content, runs her fingers through his hair. “I want a new gown, and maybe shoes and a purse?”, she is smiling up at him through her lashes, and he feels the slow unfurl of tenderness in his chest. “Of course, “ he grins, “but where do we get the money?” This too is an old joke, a remembrance of their days of struggle, before he was catapulted into the limelight, before Aaron Sorkin wanted him, before he was Spiderman. It makes him laugh, the giddy joy of success, that he can give her anything she wants, that she can ask, and he won’t have to say, “Next month, maybe?” She is laughing too, tracing his eyebrows with the pad of her index finger. “You’re ridiculous, “she says, “Ridiculously cheap.”, and he drags her down into the sheets and kisses her soundly for her cheekiness.

 

Of course, even though she says she wants to shop couture, the first thing that she does is drag him to Charing Cross. They wander in the mazy dusty mysterious old book-shops, and Andrew loves the smell of old ink and leather. He finds a first edition of Alice in Wonderland, and buys it for Shannon, who is so pleased, she whispers filthy suggestions of what unspeakable things she wants to do to his body in broad daylight. He laughs, but blushes too, and when they wander out arm-in-arm , she slips her cold fingers under his coat and tee-shirt to find the skin of his back, and the touch makes him jump, phantom memory of larger, stronger fingers tracing patterns on the sensitive skin flashing into his mind, churning his guts with sudden, fierce arousal and twisting bitter loss and nausea. He stops for a second, reminding himself that this is London, not Baltimore, he’s home with the girl he’s loved for three years, is not a heart-broken betrayed young student who cannot comprehend the hurt he’s received from his only friend, not the actor, who craves blank stares and deadpan jokes and curly hair and intense, extra-ordinary uplifting acting ability. He’s just Andrew, and he loves Shannon and they have shopping to do. She’s talking about her favourite brands and the fact that she craves chicken tikka, and this is all normal and he should be happy.

 

Of course this hard-fought for peace doesn’t last, can’t. He is tense and troubled as he gets on the plane to LA, reports for the Spiderman principal filming. Everything is huge and scripted and the green-screen action sequences are physically demanding in a way that leave him exhausted, but so overwrought he cannot sleep. The cycle is vicious and the dark cycles deepen around his eyes. Emma looks at him strangely sometimes, but does not interrupt his brooding . They do not talk as much as he did with his co-actors on The Social Network. This franchise requires healthy camaraderie, not the intense closeness that Aaron had demanded for verisimilitude. And that is a blessing. To tear himself away atom by wounded atom from something like that, Andrew doesn’t think he would survive it intact a second time. Still, the calm does not keep. Emma pulls him with her to a hole-in-a wall that serves the most amazing Indian food. He is grateful for her consideration, and relaxes, which is a mistake. Emma looks at him with her crystal sharp gaze and says, “So Andrew, I heard you were a sociable guy. Tell me, was Jesse wrong?” The siraz he had been holding spills down his nerveless fingers. “Oh shit!”, Emma gasps, and starts dabbing at him with her mostly ineffectual napkin. She is so kind and he is so ashamed of his standoffishness, he feels the sudden sting of mortifying tears . He stills her hand, the tiny birdlike frailness of her, and says, as sincerely as he can, “I am sorry Emma. I truly am. It’s just that…”. Emma, who has far more grace and perception in her than anybody guesses, pats him with her other hand, touches his cheek, quick, an almost maternal gesture from someone so young and tiny and ridiculously pretty, and says, “I understand, the enforced closeness hurts when you’ve to let go, right?” Her empathy is reassuring. He distractedly musses his hair, passes a hand over his face, composes himself. Pours a little more siraz in both their glasses, “To new friendships. May they be more than ephemeral.” He crunches his nose, and she laughs, at ease again.

 

It is only later, much later, standing on the balcony of his hotel, staring out at the blinking lights fading out to the deepest indigo of the sea, he thinks, it was not enforced. I just saw you and I did not have a chance. And you did not give me one. He should be angry at Jesse, and at himself, but he is not. It’s just this strange resignation. He remembers his joy and laughter in Jesse, remembers thinking, God, this is the best thing that has happened to me, and I’m only 27, and then, it had been taken away so suddenly he hadn’t even had time to feel anger. He’d gone straight to bereft. He will not explain to anyone why he fears the closeness now, but he needs to return to the land of the living.

 

It was so stupid, what happened. They had wrapped up principal filming, and the entire cast and crew had gone down to the bar, to celebrate and get rip-roaringly drunk. Jesse hadn’t drunk at all because he was designated driver, and Andrew had drunk little, because watching other people getting high was best entertainment ever. Especially the way Armie kept on insisting that Aaron was his soul-mate had been deeply horrifyingly funny, as had been Justin’s drunken rendition of “Sexy Back” to David’s beat-boxing. They hadn’t had an excuse. He and Jesse, they hadn’t had any excuse. The creeping sense of sadness that the others had drowned in alcoholic beverage, just kept them tense and silent on their drive back, and Andrew hadn’t even been able to look at Jesse, trade their usual banter about his freakish driving, could only hear his heart beat unnaturally loud, as the city rushed past his window in a kaleidoscope of colours. They hadn’t spoken on their way up to their suite, not when he had turned to go into his room. And then everything came crashing down. He hadn’t heard Jesse walk closer, he hadn’t heard him reach, he just felt a pair of strong arms wrap around his waist, Jesse’s chin on his shoulder, curls tickling his neck. Jesse, always talking at breakneck speed, caustic, articulate awkward Jesse hadn’t spoken at all, just hugged him from behind, and Andrew’s world came crashing down. He remembers turning around, saying, “What?”, the hoarseness of his own voice had taken him by surprise. Jesse had leaned back, and looked at him, shadows deepening his eyes, “I need you.” Andrew hadn’t refused. He can only remember flashes of what happened afterwards. Late night stubble rubbing on his chest, Jesse opening his shirt buttons and kissing the bared skin. His hands in Jesse’s curls, the silken weight of them crushed, wrapping around his fingers, the sensation more remembered, more erotic than quite a few more explicit caresses. Kissing Jesse’s eyelids, the huff of his laugh moist in the hollow of Andrew’s throat, Jesse kissing his navel, making him squirm. And later, Jesse in him, the terrible wonderful shocking invasion, the pleasure spiced by the burn, their fingers laced together, Jesse brokenly kissing his name onto his jaw, his lips, his throat, his open mouth. And later, lying in a bed too small for two grown-up men, his leg slung over Jesse’s hip, Jesse’s cool fingers tracing words on his back, letters like a and h and u and v, making him smile at the randomness. He falls asleep smiling, Jesse cradled near. Of course, the next morning there is no Jesse in the apartment. He first thinks it is for a run, or for some errand. As the hours pass, the tension settle like a lump of lead in his stomach. Jesse doesn’t appear. Andrew throws up until nothing is left in his stomach, lies on the cold bathroom floor for what seems like hours. At six in the evening, he arranges for a taxi to take him to the airport.

 

When he opens his phone, there is one message from Jesse: I am sorry.

 

He has thought a lot about that night. He hasn’t told Shannon because she won’t understand. He doesn’t quite understand either. He thinks he let Eduardo bleed in too deeply in their interaction. Maybe Jesse did too. He didn’t know if he loved Jesse or Eduardo desperately wanted Mark. And that had been an epic mistake. Except, this rationalization doesn’t help him heal. It startles him when he sees a sudden flash of a smile on the parking lot, or a hand waving a lot in a conversation. He misses Jesse so much he can’t bear it sometimes. He sometimes forgets he’s kissing Shannon or Emma, the lips are firmer, chapped in his memory. He thinks he’s going mad. He thinks he should have been more careful. That’s all.

 

He has been in his trailer, taking off his make-up. Simon tells him there must be 50 ways to leave his lover over the iPod speakers, and he is smiling. What about the one who left you groping in the dark, Simon? He thinks, and smiles some more. It is an ordinary Friday, he will leave now, and go to his hotel. Maybe later he will walk down the beach, feel the cool sand under his toes, dip his feet in the ocean. One day at a time. Maybe he’ll call Shannon. Or ask Emma to dinner. He’ll sift the hours until he finds something to have joy in.

 

The door to his trailer opens, and he wonders if Marc wants a word.” Just a sec”, he yells out, pulling on his shirt. When he turns, Jesse is standing there, quietly. He is thinner, his eyes are dark and wounded. Andrew cannot take this. He blindly goes to brush past Jesse, outside, somewhere away where he can breathe. Jesse takes his hand, his voice is begging. “It was never acting with you Andrew, I don’t know how.”

 

Andrew looks up at the empty sky. They have both survived this, he thinks. Now they must learn to live again.


End file.
